Hawaii - part four

We’re on the way to Vancouver with slightly more distance to go than on the old postcard above.

Middle-of-the-road, ever bigger cruise ships, in essentials at least, increasingly resemble each other. I fondly remember past, more intimate and distinctive vessels on which I’ve travelled. As recently as 2008, Kathy, Mike & I were aboard Explorer, a ship of only 25,000 tons.

One of my favourite pictures of Mike & Kathy was taken on Explorer while in the Amazon. 

Now I’m on Holland America’s Eurodam, 86,000 tons, the largest ship I’ve ever experienced, but considered ‘mid-sized’. She’s hardly a streamlined ‘greyhound of the sea’ and, in fact, looks rather ungainly. 

Here she towers above me at dockside.

That said, my cabin’s comfortable; the food is good; the crew, as usual on Holland America, is friendly and helpful, and diversions abound. 

Some Eurodam touches I enjoy include original paintings of Holland America ships …

… magnificent elevator doors …

… and some very funny pictures among scores in frames along the passageways. The chap in these, taken by a ship’s photographer, initially looks rather glum …

… but finally cheers up at what appears to be a 1950s costume party. Note the son’s headwear.

The mural behind Eurodam’s front desk is meant to evoke glamorous departures. However, I can assure you, the family and friends waving off Eurodam or any other cruise ship, for that matter, are now only found in coffee table books about the ‘golden age’ of travel. Security concerns have long since banished from dockside those who aren't sailing. Still, I applaud the decorative effort.

On such a large ship, it’s easy to find quiet spaces for reading. I often have this room with panoramic windows all to myself.

Examining the decor - at night the room’s a bar next to an Asian themed restaurant - I’m mildly surprised to discover a display of 19th Century opium pipes.

And even more surprised, while absorbed in a book, to think I’m hearing bagpipes … surely not… but wait, I really do hear bagpipes from somewhere overhead … why am I hearing bagpipes in the middle of the Pacific? I leave my book and find the way to Eurodam’s topmost deck, just above my peaceful sanctuary.

Sue from British Columbia is practising the Piper’s Lament for her community’s Remembrance Day service. When on freighters, I was told of a ship’s captain who played the bagpipes, but have never heard of a passenger. In years to come, I may well forget most of what happened on Eurodam, but definitely won’t forget the bagpipes!

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Waiting for my plane at Vancouver Airport, I scan the newspaper headlines. I’ve arrived back in Canada on the day pot becomes legal. 

Hawaii - part three

The rest of my Hawaii holiday is spent seeing places I’ve not been before. 

On Kauai, Waimea Canyon. 

To Mark Twain is attributed the term the ‘Grand Canyon of the Pacific’. However, he apparently was never here or said this resembled the Grand Canyon. That hasn’t deterred either tourist businesses or bazillions of visitors from claiming he did. I watch a gaggle of helicopters …

… and a guy who seems more absorbed in his phone than natural splendours. 

Mind you, he can wear an aloha shirt without embarrassment, which I can’t. 

On Maui, I’m impressed by the scenery …

… a simply huge banyan tree (inevitably disrespected by simpletons) …

… and hang glider mesmerizingly aloft on the wind.

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However, I’m not overly impressed by a plague of t-shirt shops and their offerings…

… or one particular truck making painfully slow progress along Lahaina’s congested main street (to which, yes, I’m adding) …

… while I avoid Segways. (On return home, a friend scathingly comments, “Everyone looks like a dork on a Segway. I think to many this counts as ‘adventure travel’ cuz they had to wear a helmet.”)

Speaking of adventure travel, a quick diversion of more than twenty-five years and a long way from Hawaii. Having chatted with Sir Edmund Hillary, I decided to go to Mount Everest. Not, I hasten to add, to the summit, but as far up as was advisable for a decidedly cautious, unfit, inexperienced trekker. This, following Hillary’s 1953 route from Kathmandu, turned out to be 5,643 metres or 18,514 feet.

With Everest behind - and well above - me, I somewhat unsteadily pose and think, ‘Not one damn step higher!’

Until planning this current trip, it hadn’t sunk in there are some rather high mountains here. One is Mauna Kea, a dormant volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. This is the highest - bar air travel - I’ve been since Everest. Getting to Everest Base Camp took weeks of increasingly breathless walking; getting to the top of Mauna Kea, 4,205 metres or 13,796 feet, involved a couple of hours of driving with brief stop to ‘acclimatize’ and, more important, use a bathroom. 

The summit, with a number of telescopes, including one funded by Canada, is reasonably impressive and a touch surreal.

(I’m slightly ashamed it’s only later I discover the mountain is considered sacred by native Hawaiians and there has been opposition to a new telescope being built.) 

Now, it’s ‘aloha’, ‘goodbye’ to Hawaii. I gather ‘aloha’ can mean ‘hello’, ‘welcome’ and also ‘farewell’. On miserable Toronto winter days, memories of Hawaii will keep me warm for a few seconds. 

It was delightful seeing Kathy & Mike. Maybe someday they’ll persuade me to get an aloha shirt. However, I do regret not buying a $7.95 pencil holder to add to my collection of kitsch.

One last post on Eurodam, the ship I'm aboard, coming up.

Hawaii - part two

Diamond Head as we arrive at sunrise. Just below it live good friends Kathy and Mike, main reason for this trip.

A short walk from the dock is Honolulu’s 1920s Aloha Tower ...

... where we meet for coffee and a long catchup chat ... followed by noontime beer at the atmospherically seedy - and historic - Union, used by the crew of the doomed USS Arizona as ‘their’ bar in Honolulu. Get there soon as, sadly, it may close. 

Nearby, we lunch at an excellent Chinatown dim sum restaurant. After I visit the loo, Kathy holds the unforgettable key. 

Well lubricated, fed and relieved, it’s time to see Kathy and Mike’s home. The number 20 bus - seniors $1 - takes us through the tourist chaos of Waikiki

  - to the quiet residential area at the far end of what must be one of the most reproduced images in travel history.

On their balcony, Mike, reflected in the mirror, takes a picture of Kathy & me.

Until recently, they lived on one of the Caribbean islands hit by last year’s hurricanes and only moved here a few months ago. Their new home is quite wonderful. Out front, the Pacific ...

... out back, the base of Diamond Head and large and pleasant park for picnics.

I come bearing gifts, well, a gift to reciprocate - actually, retaliate - for a present they gave me in Florida last year.

As I said in my blog at the time: 

“With their customary generosity, they throw away the wallet and bring me a gift - a little Florida turtle swimming past a tiny bottle with shells. Surprisingly, they forget to remove the ‘Made in China’ label, but can't be faulted on their astonishing taste. I hope to reciprocate before long.”

After much searching in Toronto, I found a gift that unquestionably rivals their turtle in elegance. 

The toothpick holder, also made in China, now resides on their balcony table, but for how long?

When they recover from my munificence, we tour the neighbourhood. It surprises me with streets of 1920s heritage homes in decidedly ‘untropical’ architectural styles, for instance, an 'English Tudor Cottage' ...

... homes against which surf boards rest ...

... and local surfers and boogie boarders pass.

However, there is one house from the 1930s that strikes me being somewhat of the era and Hawaiian setting. 

It certainly has the most fantastic gate. This is worth clicking on.

As I was in Honolulu just two days (Kathy, Mike & I will be together for a month next year), photos are few. Time was spent in good conversation, my happy introduction to touristy mai tais (rum, Curaçao liqueur, orgeat almond syrup and lime juice) and a gentle, but ultimately futile, effort to introduce me to an aloha shirt in which I would look even more ridiculous than usual.

I’ll leave it to these athletic young men to change from their wetsuits into aloha shirts. Perhaps they’ll also put on some shoes.

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Also see my Arizona and Charlie Chan posts from a previous visit to Honolulu: 

http://trainsandboatsandplanesandtheoddbus.blogspot.com/2016/10/pacific-australia-part-two.html

http://trainsandboatsandplanesandtheoddbus.blogspot.com/2016/10/pacific-australia-part-three.html